English comes full circle

One of Dan English’s little regrets is losing his North Idaho College letterman jacket.

It was stolen from his car while he attended San Jose State in the 1970s.

English, a former Kootenai County clerk, recently announced his retirement as the director of the Area Agency on Aging, which operates under North Idaho College.

Leaving the job where he has worked the past three years after spending a lifetime in community service and working with nonprofits in Kootenai County means his career has pretty much come full circle.

He started his postsecondary education at NIC, where he was a member of the wrestling team after graduating from the original Coeur d’Alene High grappling program in 1970.

A dean of the the art of humility, English says his prowess as a matman wouldn’t stand nowadays, but it earned him a Cardinal letter and he carried the jacket to San Jose State, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice administration.

And where the jacket was swiped.

“I would love to have that old NIC letterman jacket back,” English said.

The jacket may be gone, but Coeur d’Alene is rife with other symbols of English’s achievements.

When the 67-year-old announced this week that he plans to retire, many asked, why?

Like much of his long career, retiring from NIC will be a sort of circling back, he said.

The small downtown college on the lake was where English received the initial education that launched him to bigger schools and bigger things.

“I was in the first law enforcement class there,” English said.

After earning his bachelor’s at San Jose, English returned to Coeur d’Alene, graduated from the police academy and worked as a juvenile detective at the sheriff’s office. He then earned a master’s degree from Gonzaga in counseling psychology and became the 88th licensed professional counselor in Idaho. The number of state certified counselors has since burgeoned into the five or six digits, English said.

“I’m still old number 88,” he said.

As a juvie cop, English recognized that Kootenai County needed a facility for delinquent teens to be mentored, receive counseling and if need be, to make transitions to new families.

Because there were no plans for that sort of halfway facility, the young English started the county’s first chapter of Youth for Christ and opened Anchor House, a residential facility that merged with the Idaho Youth Ranch. From 1985 to 1993 English was the executive director of Anchor House and the area’s Idaho Youth Ranch program.

Two years later, he used his experience in law enforcement, his knowledge of the court system and public service to be appointed, and then elected, as county clerk, a position he held for 15 years.

“I was the last elected Democrat in Kootenai County,” he said.

He joined North Idaho CASA as its executive director after leaving the county and then became the administrator of Habitat for Humanity North Idaho. From there he was tapped as director for the Area Agency on Aging, a position he has held since 2016, the same year he became a Coeur d’Alene City Council member.

English has had his finger on the pulse of area politics and nonprofits for so long that his name, locally, is synonymous with both.

His first elected position wasn’t as county clerk, however — he won a school board election while in his 20s. Even though it’s not something he thinks about a lot.

“Some of my teachers would come before (the board) and probably wondered, ‘What is this guy doing up here?’” he said, chuckling at the thought. But English’s proficiency in government-funded endeavors also belies his prowess as an entrepreneur and small business owner.

Noticing how difficult and costly it was in the late 1990s to set up election booths, English developed a portable booth that could be set up quickly at community halls and church basements that double as county election halls.

The Tote-a-Vote weighs less than 7 pounds, comes in a duffel sack and can be set up by anyone in under a minute, according to his company’s website.

The company’s first $10,000 went to a local teen charity, English said.

“It benefited everyone,” he said.

The booths are sold in 30 states, but English intends, during retirement, to grow the company.

If his retirement from the Area Agency on Aging is bittersweet, it is also apropos, he said.

“I feel like I got my start there,” English said. “So, it is kind of a capstone to my professional work, to finish up there.”

Losing the letterman jacket is the only regret he has from his affiliation with North Idaho College.